Real Life Romance 1: Peter and Francesca
In June 1999, I met my husband. I walked into an Edinburgh pub on my first night at work there, someone said, "Oh, he'll look after you," then this big Scotsman turned around and smiled. I stared back and thought he was gorgeous. I still do. I hope I always will. Real life romance is out there! And thinking of the first time I met him, and the impact that first sight had, I've decided to post some real love stories of people I have met. Here's the first.
Peter was in his thirties with a job that involved driving between England and France, and one summer in the 1950s he was coming back north to England when he met two Italian girls hitch-hiking. Being the 1950s, he stopped and offered them a lift.
He then admitted that he fell instantly in love with one of the girls, Francesca. However, since he thought this was a bit mad, he didn't say anything about it. Instead, he dropped them in a street somewhere in Paris, and drove all the way home to England...
...where he turned around, got straight back in the car, drove back to Paris, and started searching for Francesca. He didn't know her surname, where she was staying, nothing, but he kept looking. Amazingly, after a couple of days, he found her.
Even more amazingly, Francesca was overjoyed to see him because she had fallen in love with him too but hadn't known how to say so! He asked her to marry him, she accepted immediately, and they had a wonderfully happy marriage for sixty years. They were still very obviously in love right to the end.
This is not a novel. This is not a fiction story. These were real people. Peter really did search Paris for a girl he'd met for an afternoon, and Francesca really did feel the same.
Love at first sight! More true romance stories to come...